The present invention relates to articles for conditioning fabrics in an automatic clothes dryer wherein the article comprises a flexible substrate which carries a fabric softening/antistatic agent (hereinafter "fabric conditioning agent").
The employment of such fabric conditioning articles to impart softening and antistatic effects to fabrics in a laundry dryer has been described in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,442,692 to Gaiser, issued May 6, 1969, describes the conditioning of fabrics in a laundry dryer by cotumbling the fabrics with a flexible substrate carrying a conditioning agent. The conditioning agent is transferred to the tumbling fabrics to provide fabric conditioning which otherwise might only inconveniently be effected by treatment, for example, during the rinsing cycle of a laundering operation. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,686,025 to Morton, issued Aug. 22, 1972, describes an article for conditioning fabrics in a laundry dryer. The article comprises an absorptive substrate impregnated with a fabric softening agent for the provision of fabric softening effects with minimal staining tendencies.
In the articles described in the above prior art and in those which are presently available in the market, the fabric conditioning agent is distributed uniformly on the substrate. As a result, it is difficult, when visually examining a used article, to determine if the article has been previously used to condition fabrics in a dryer, i.e., the article has a uniform appearance prior to use, and after any given period of use in the dryer it still has a uniform appearance.
It is an object of the present invention to provide fabric conditioning articles for dryer use which indicate by their appearance whether or not they have been previously used.